Category Archives: Dancing With…

What’s Your Sign? (Or, a Magical Productivity System for People Who Have Trouble Finishing Things)

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I don’t believe in horoscopes.

Not the “You’re this sign and therefore this exact thing will happen to you today/this week” ones in the magazines and newspapers, anyway.

But I do believe in astrology. I believe that the position of the stars and planets affects us.

I’m also fascinated by the cycle of moons and the wheel of the year, which I’ve been learning about this year

This stuff? Oh yes, I completely believe in it.

And I believe that the way the stars and planets aligned at our birth has an impact on our personality. I think it’s more complicated than your main sign, though…have you read your birth chart lately? A lot of mine is scarily accurate.

So, while I don’t believe what the magazines tell me about my future (can all Libras really have an unlucky/lucky day on the exact same day? And why do they keep telling me I’ll meet someone new when I’m happily married?), I do believe that my sign has a lot to tell me about myself.

For example: Libra. Scales. Balance.

Or…majorly effing indecisive.

Yup, that one rings true.

And so does this one: Libra. Air sign. Mentally oriented and often caught up in thoughts…aka easily distracted and not the best at following through on said thoughts with concrete actions.

This is SO me. Case in point: tiny plate syndrome, where I get distracted by the multitude of possible projects before me and forget the biggest, scariest, most important one.

Other case in point: the fact that on Monday, while I was thinking about my blog and business, I was suddenly seized by the desire to start a brand new blog. NOOOOOO.

Always starting, rarely finishing. That’s my M.O. And that’s why last weekend’s telecircle was such a huge triumph for me…sometimes it feels like I’m struggling against my own nature when I actually FINISH something and make it real (boy, am I awesome at starting things, though!).

Last week Matthew (bless him) pointed out during one of my panicky Libra freakouts that my air-sign mind was busily hopping from thing to thing to thing, but I wasn’t actually finishing anything. Again. And we talked about things I could do to cut that crap out.

Here’s the truth: not getting things done feels crappy, especially when you’ve got an overflowing to-do list. I’d like productivity (actual, results-producing productivity as opposed to frantic busy-work that leads nowhere) to be something that happens every day, not when I’ve committed myself into a corner and am completely panicked.

So I started experimenting with techniques that could help. And it turned out that the magic combination was in my mental toolbox the entire time…I just hadn’t realized it.

Here’s Meg’s Magical Productivity Combo for air signs (or anyone who’s having trouble getting things done).

1. MicroMOVEments

Oh man, I’ve known about SARK’s anti-procrastination technique FOREVER, but it never really stuck for me. Making lists of tiny baby steps with deadlines kind of felt like a giant waste of my time and just another thing to do before I actually tried to do the things on my…to-do…list.

But I was so very, very wrong. MicroMOVEments (or at least their babystep cousins) are what got me organized for my class on Saturday. Instead of a crazy-making, procrastination-inducing list like this:

-Plan class
-Test Vokle
-Send final newsletter

I created a list that went like this:

Plan class:

  •  Pick music
  • Write initial plan
  • Write detailed plan
  • Finalize
  • Practice

Test Vokle:

  • Set up camera
  • Test camera and sound
  • Test speaking over music
  • Test chat window

Send final newsletter:

  • take Vokle screenshots
  • schedule event and get link
  • write newsletter, include link, playlist, screenshots, link to world clock
  • test newsletter
  • send newsletter

You get the idea. Each step, which was initially too large for me to wrap my head around and thus led to intense procrastination and distraction, was broken down into its constituent parts.

It was great, because that way I didn’t forget anything, and I had all the pieces of the puzzle written down in one place, ready to check off. AND (bonus) each task was fairly easy to achieve in a short-ish time period, so I could check more things off as I went. My airy brain LOVED this.

2. The Pomodoro Technique

OK, I admit it, I’ve only tried this for about 36 hours. But I already love it.

If you don’t know what the Pomodoro technique is, the basic principle is that you set a timer and work for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break. Repeat 4 times, and then take a longer break. Etc.

Jamie Ridler has mentioned it a few times, and she recommended it highly. And now I know why.

I think this is going to really work for me. 25 minutes is short enough that I can keep myself working (as opposed to, say, checking Facebook), but long enough that I can actually get something done. On Monday night I managed three 25-minute sessions, and I checked 4 things off my list! On Tuesday afternoon, I did 5 sessions and completed a whole PAGE of babysteps!

The combination is perfect for me. I can’t get over how productive I’ve been!

And here’s the best part:

I’ve been thinking about my airiness as something WRONG with me, but I finally see…this isn’t about needing to “fix” myself. Being an air sign isn’t better or worse than any other sign…it just IS. It’s time to accept that I’m easily distractible and that ideas come more naturally to me than follow through…and it’s time to create some systems to help me balance out the airiness.

I think I’m off to a good start!

What’s YOUR sign? Does it have anything to tell you about the way you work?

P.S. I’m collecting information to help me plan future telecircles! Want to help me? Click here to take the (super-short) survey

 

How to Respond When the Universe F*cks Up Your Plans

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I had last week all mapped out. It was booked off on my schedule as “work from home week.” Matthew had a day or two of work to do, but on all the other days I was going to take the afternoon and Do Some Work. Solid, uninterrupted, glorious work. I started out strong on Monday, inspired by my stellar office makeover.

And that’s where it stopped.

On Monday night I noticed that my throat was scratchy. On Tuesday, when I launched my 8-week session of DansKinetics classes at DANSpace (hint hint: you should come and dance with me!), I was in the process of losing my voice. By the time I got home that night it was official: I was sick.

It wasn’t my ordinary cold. For the past 5 years at least, my colds have followed a precise pattern: start in the head with 2 days of abject misery, move to the chest, feel better. This one? This one started in the chest and then migrated up, wiping me out completely for 3 days and not slacking off until Day 4. So. Much. Fun.

Instead of my lovely week of working and planning, I found myself slumped miserably on the sofa, watching movies with Xander, and even taking a daily afternoon nap (this never happens). I couldn’t walk from one end of the apartment to the other without having to lie down afterwards.

I started getting suspicious right around Day 2. I mean, I know the scientific mechanics of cold-catching, but I am absolutely convinced that illnesses come for a reason. And this one, this weird and oddly-timed cold? Definitely not random.

As I lay on the sofa, I thought a lot about Why This Happened. And the longer I lay there, the more insight I had about it. The way I see it, this cold came around for two reasons:

1. I wasn’t taking care of myself.
I’ve been staying up too late, working too much, not taking time to play or be still (this was made very clear over the course of my sofa-time…I’d forgotten what it felt like to sit for more than an hour without doing something).

It’s the usual story, and that’s why it’s my go-to theory when I get sick. My body decided that, if I wasn’t going to cut it out voluntarily, it would make me be still and look after myself…hence the 3 days on the sofa (and even now I’m not 100%…I had to lie down for half an hour this afternoon!)

2. My brand-new blinding-light epiphany: I was off-centre, and it was throwing everything off. In fact, I had been off-centre and floundering for so long that it had stopped feeling bad and started feeling normal.  This cold came to show me the truth.

I haven’t been fully living my life. Not walking my talk. Not living my message. Getting stuck in ruts of habit and resistance. Business-wise, not doing the biggest things on my lists. Meaning to do them and then getting bogged down in avoidance and perfectionism (which are both just fancy names for not doing something out of fear). Hanging back and stressing out and checking Facebook instead of moving through my to-do lists. Forgetting why I was doing the work in the first place. Letting myself and my dreams down.

That sounds like I’m berating myself for it, and I’m really not. I could feel that something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I don’t think off-centeredness registered consciously before last week because, really, I’ve been doing so much better than I was last year or the year before that (and don’t get me started on my first year as a mama). But I don’t feel good…and besides, better isn’t the same as full-colour-awesome. Now that I can see the difference, it’s time to make a change.

A lot of the “walking my talk” things I’ve been neglecting are self-care: Reiki. Meditation. Watching dance performance. Reading actual books. Moving my body regularly in the ways I teach and write about. Doing the work that’s most important to me instead of skirting the edges and making busy-work (and then getting worn ragged and stressed out and sick). These are all things that would make my mama-job easier and help me follow my passion. These aren’t things to “not have time for,” or to forget about or to avoid.

I knew vaguely that I was doing that before this cold, but I didn’t realize the full extent of the problem until I was forced to stop working altogether. I needed the week of misery in order to get perspective on the months that came before.

My Reiki Master taught us a saying during one of our attunement workshops: when she’s going through a major healing crisis, be it a physical illness or an emotional rollercoaster, she says “Thank you for my healing.” No matter the situation, she says “Thank you for my healing.” (Sometimes she shouts it and shakes her fist at the Universe :P )

Now that I’m getting better, that phrase sums up my feelings exactly. Last week didn’t go AT ALL how I planned. Being sick sucked a LOT, and I was so disappointed about not being able to do the things I’d planned, but now I can see the necessity of the week on the sofa. I appreciate the insights I gained from the change in plans.

Now I get to decide how I want to proceed from here.

Thank you for my healing.

A whirlwind of change…

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Last week my life changed.

I don’t mean that in an “I’ve had a crazy awesome epiphany way” (for once). I mean it literally. Last week my life as I’ve known it for the past 4 years…changed.

I went back to work.

People who don’t know me personally probably need some backstory here: For the past few years, my husband has been working at a computer game company (he’s an insanely talented artist..do a Google image search for “Matthew Goodmanson art” sometime and see what I mean). But at the end of March he left his regular office job to work from home on a contract basis.

He needed a break from work, and I (I hate to admit this) needed a break from full-time Mama-ing, so we agreed that he would stay home with Xander and I would go back to working temp assignments like I did when I was pregnant.

I started my first assignment on Wednesday. And it was FAR more difficult than I’d expected.

The work itself wasn’t much more difficult than I had expected (although I had to learn a TON that first day). It’s the emotional strain I hadn’t considered. You don’t even want to know how much I cried that first day. I cried when Matthew and Xander dropped me off, I broke down sobbing on my cell phone at lunch, I cried after work, and I cried before bed. I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I actually cried a little bit during work as well.

I wasn’t just crying because I missed my kid (I did) or that the work was intimidating (it was). In hindsight, I think I was crying because I didn’t know how to process what was happening. It was the biggest change I’d been through since I became a mama—which, incidentally, made me cry in exactly the same way for a number of weeks. It felt huge and scary, and I didn’t know how to handle it.

Things got better. No more crying after that first day. But the tears have been replaced with…I don’t know…malaise. Something’s shifted since the last time I did this. I can’t really explain it in any way other than saying that I feel exactly the way your feet feel when you’ve been wearing sneakers and flats for years and then try to go out in heels. I’m trying to be a person I’m not, wearing a costume (because what is “business attire” if not a costume?) so I can fit in. I feel wobbly and uncomfortable and all wrong. I feel like I’m from another planet or something. I don’t like the way this feels AT ALL.

I don’t remember feeling this way before. And I can’t tell if this is growing pains or something more permanent. I think that I assumed that when I went back to work, things would go back to the way they were when I was pregnant and temping, that I would settle into the rhythm and be 100% OK with everything. And maybe I will…I’m only 3 days in, after all, and I’ve been at home for almost 4 years…it just doesn’t feel like it’ll be OK from here. And I don’t know if I want it to be…

I’m in SUCH a weird space right now…off-balance, adjusting, while simultaneously feeling like I don’t WANT to adjust. I’m trying to remember that I’m not in this forever, that things will sort themselves out, that I can still be ME and work toward my dreams even when I’m working an office job (lots of people do it, right?!).

There are some good things. I’m finding that my priorities are clarifying in the face of this change. I’m learning that when I’m at home, I need to do my Right Work with super-intense focus and efficiency, or it doesn’t get done at all. This would be why you barely heard from me last week (it’s a learning process) but I assume that (eventually) learning to do my work efficiently and intensely will be a good thing in the end. And I’m cherishing every minute with Xander, even when I end up being the puke-catcher and cleaner-upper all weekend (he caught a tummy bug…blech).

I’m struggling to regain my balance in the middle of a whirlwind of change.  I don’t have a solution or a Grand Plan or anything really conclusive yet. But I can tell you this: here and now I make a commitment—

~to hang on to my dreams with both hands

~to make use of every moment I have

~to work with laser intensity and rest/play with equal intensity when I’m done

~to dance as much as I can

~to keep an eye open for opportunities

~to remember that this change will help me get where I need to go, even if it’s just by shaking things up and reminding me of what’s important.

And what’s most important to me is this:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOYxQ0znZN4)